Rose
I had a setback this week.
Dr. Campbell told me to expect them. He said it the way he says everything, calm and without an escape hatch: recovery isn't a staircase, Rosalie, it's a tide.
I'd nodded like a good student and privately decided that setbacks were probably for people with less discipline than me.
The tide did not give a shit about my discipline.
The mistake was social media. Months clean, and I broke on a Tuesday for no reason I can name. I just opened the app the way you touch a bruise to see if it still hurts.
Evidently, the algorithm knew exactly who I was, even out here. Wesley's trial was everywhere. Every day of coverage, every courthouse photo, every panel of talking heads dissecting the case like it was content instead of people's lives.
Jackson was there. Every single day.
Same seat. Same suit. Same unreadable face in the background of a hundred photographs, and not once did he look at the cameras.
And the women.
So many women came forward.
I read their accounts long past the point where reading them was doing anything but harm. Harassment. Assault. Details that made my stomach turn because I recognized too much of him in them, that same terrible signature running through story after story.
Then I was crying.
Then I wasn't getting out of bed.
Then somehow it was three days later.
It wasn't until I heard knocking at my door that I saw daylight again, with Dr. Campbell standing between me and the sun.
"Hey, doc."
"Hello, Rosalie."
I step back and let him in, and we start the familiar route toward the second bedroom I converted into an office for our weekly sessions.
He doesn't hurry.
I watch him take the scenic tour without appearing to. The open food containers on the counter. The empty bottles clustered beside the sink. My phone face-up on the couch, still murmuring the latest report on Wesley's case to a room that has stopped listening.
He doesn't comment on any of it.
"Coffee?" I ask as he sets his bag down.
"Please, yes."
I go through the motions of making two cups, grateful for a task with steps.
Scoop. Water. Mug. Pour.
Very advanced stuff.
I can imagine how I look. I haven't showered in days. My hair has developed opinions. There's a version of me that would be mortified for anyone to see me like this, but Dr. Campbell stopped being anyone somewhere around year three.
I hand him his mug, take my usual seat across from him, and find that I can barely lift my eyes to his face.
I'm afraid of what I'll find there. Disappointment, maybe. Pity would be worse.
I'd been doing so well, and some part of me is already drafting the apology, outlining the mitigating circumstances, preparing to litigate my own relapse before he's even asked the first question.
"Rosalie?"
"Present, your honor."
A ghost of a smile crosses his face at that. He's told me before that my humor is a vital sign. The day I stop deflecting is the day he worries.
"How has the last week been?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I gesture at the house, at myself, at the whole exhibit.
"Things aren't usually as they seem," he says, settling back with his coffee. "How about you tell me in your own words, and I won't assume."
"I miss home, I guess. I let myself get on social media to check in on everyone. I miss them." I turn my mug in a slow circle against my knee. "Him. Today's his birthday, and I've never missed his birthday. Not once since I met him."
"Are you ready to go home?"
"No." The answer comes out faster than I expect. "But I don't feel any different than when I got here, so at this point I think I'm just hiding."
He doesn't argue with me. Not that I’d expect him to. He just takes a sip of coffee and lets the statement sit there until I start getting irritated with my own words.
I shift in my seat and pull my legs underneath me.
"You've been watching the court case," he says.
I nod.
"Is it bringing you any sense of closure?"
"Closure feels relative at this point. Wesley may go to prison, but now I have to contend with knowing it's his son I've been in love with all these years. How do I wrap my head around that?"
"You've said Jackson doesn't have a relationship with Wesley. You've also said Wesley isn't his biological father." He pauses. "So what do you think is driving the connection for you?"
I open my mouth and realize I don't have an answer waiting.
That's the thing about Campbell. He asks questions that sound annoyingly simple until you actually try to answer them.
"I don't know. Proximity, maybe? Jackson grew up in that man's house.
I'm sure he has some of his mannerisms. The way he holds a fork.
Certain phrases. Things that don't matter.
" I look down at my coffee. "But my brain keeps trying to connect them anyway, like if I'm not careful enough, loving Jackson becomes some kind of... "
I stop.
"Some kind of what?"
I take a breath.
"Betrayal."
He waits.
"Of myself. Of the woman on that office floor." My fingers tighten around the mug. "Like she'd look at me standing beside him and think I forgot her."
Dr. Campbell is quiet for a moment.
"Do you believe Jackson knew what Wesley had done at any point before you did?"
"No. When he found out, it broke him. That much I know."
"Then I think that's worth separating from everything else." He sets his mug down. "You keep describing small similarities your mind is searching for. A mannerism. A phrase. The fact that they shared a house. But none of those things tell you who Jackson is."
I don't say anything.
"What does?"
I know where he's going now.
"What he did when he found out."
"Exactly."
I stare into my coffee.
"He chose my justice over his father."
"Yes. Another one."
"He ended the marriage."
"Yes. One more."
"And he turned Wesley in."
"Yes."
He leans back slightly. "So when your mind starts putting the two men in the same column, check the evidence before you let the feeling become a conclusion."
"So your professional recommendation is that I file a motion to dismiss?"
"The argument, maybe." His mouth twitches. "The feeling will probably ignore the ruling and come back anyway."
"Naturally."
"Feelings are terrible clients."
My head falls back with a laugh. "I love it when you talk courtroom to me, doc. Really revs my engines."
He takes another sip of coffee and immediately grimaces. "And you make a shit cup of coffee."
"That's slander."
"It's testimony." He raises the mug an inch. "I have Exhibit A right here."
***
"How was the surprise party?" I ask Jade once I've settled in for the night.
She's the only person I allow myself regular contact with, and even that is minimal. One call a month, the first few minutes always business because I knew she'd need help getting settled as Senior Counsel and because I can flee my entire life but still micromanage a transition plan from an island.
"It was good. It went really good."
Her voice is soft in a way I don't like.
Sad, maybe.
"Are you okay, babes?"
"It was... yeah. I'm okay. Just a rough day." She exhales. "How are you? I miss your face."
"I miss your face too." I pull the blanket higher over my legs. "I'm doing okay, I guess. I'm working on it."
The Jackson-shaped elephant in the room settles squarely between us.
I don't ask.
That was the deal. I don't use Jade to keep tabs on them, and they don't use her to keep tabs on me. It isn't fair to turn one of my best friends into some kind of emotional switchboard just because none of us can manage to speak directly to each other yet.
Still, the question sits right there.
Was he happy?
Did he like the card?
Did he look okay?
I swallow all three.
Jade knows me too well not to hear them anyway.
"I love you, Rose," she says after a moment. "I'll let you go. We're okay, I promise. Take care of yourself, yeah?"
We're okay.
Such a careful little sentence.
I let her keep it.
"Yeah. Of course. I love you too, babes. I'll catch you next month."
We hang up, and this time I shut my phone off completely instead of leaving it face-down beside me like temptation with a battery.
I turn toward the balcony and watch the waves from bed.
Somewhere out there, across all that dark water and distance, Jackson had a birthday.
I don't let myself wonder what he did with the card.
Not for very long, anyway.
Eventually, the sound of the waves pulls me under.